Donate

Make a donation today to help El Kilombo sustain our community center and grow our housing, employment, and food cooperatives, so our community can organize and thrive in center city Durham.

Who we are:

El Kilombo Intergaláctico is a community organization made up of migrants, students, working class residents, and people of color in Durham, NC.

We opened the doors of our community center on May 1st, 2006 as a neighborhood social space and program center. We started free programs – youth and adult education programs, health and legal clinics, a weekly dinner, neighborhood festivals and more – proposed and created by residents to support our community’s general well-being.

Over the past six years we have grown beyond our space to create a community garden that provides healthy food and an outdoor community space, employment cooperatives that provide stable and dignified work, and a low-income housing cooperative through which we have acquired, renovated, and collectively manage housing for nine low-income families (and we are expanding!). We have done all of this on a shoe-string budget and with no paid staff. Through thousands of hours of community labor, we are working together to build a community and a city based in equality and cooperation.

Although we’ve built a strong community through the center and its programs, we’ve also experienced directly the effects of ‘urban revitalization’ as it has displaced many neighborhood residents – all low-income people of color living in the city center. The financial crisis has also disproportionately affected our community, with cuts in social services, rising unemployment, and defunding or privatization of public housing and public schools.

Our vision:

We believe that to fight the disparate effects of both development and crisis on low-income communities of color, we must build, from the ground up, our communities’ capacity for self-determination, spaces “where everything that is done for us is done by us.”

Why we need your support:

In addition to ongoing operating costs, we will be strengthening the housing cooperative, supporting the expansion and development of worker cooperatives, training new youth leadership, and continuing to build our membership. Here’s how we will dedicate your contribution:

$3,500: community center program supplies and much-needed computer upgrades for the community center!

As a community organization with no paid staff and a tight budget, we have learned to do a lot with a little. We are setting our donor drive goal at $10,000 to help meet our most basic costs, but exceeding that goal would allow us to strengthen our community and increase participation through expanded programs and initiatives.

Become a “Kilombo Sustainer” (Recurring Donations):

Become a “Sustainer” by committing to a monthly donation. Select the level of your monthly contribution and click the “Subscribe” button to the left. After clicking the “Subscribe” button below, you can choose to pay with a Paypal account OR a debit/credit card. To pay by debit/credit card, look toward the bottom of the page for the credit card icons, and click on “No Paypal account? Pay using your credit or debit card.” Please note that the Paypal site will require that you provide a valid email address. Your Sustaining donation will be automatically deducted each month. You can choose to modify your giving level at any time.

Note: If you prefer, you can also setup recurring monthly donations through your bank (whereby your bank 1. automatically mails a check to Kilombo monthly, or 2. your bank makes an automatic direct transfer monthly. In the case of direct transfer, email info@elkilombo.org and we can provide you our bank routing and account information.).

Make a One-time Donation:

Online via Paypal or debit/credit card: Make a one-time donation by clicking the “Donate” button to the left. If you do not have a PayPal account: After clicking the button to the left, ignore the PayPal login box, and instead click “continue” under the phrase “Don’t have a PayPal account?” at the bottom of the page. Enter the amount you would like to donate, and remember to click “Update Total.”